


Colors

by TortiTabby



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Teachers, Getting Together, M/M, Pastel Dan and Punk Phil, With A Twist, highschool au (kind of)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-16
Updated: 2019-08-16
Packaged: 2020-09-01 19:34:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20263387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TortiTabby/pseuds/TortiTabby
Summary: Dan tries out a social experiment on his psychology students by wearing soft pastel colors and finds it affecting him more than he anticipated.





	Colors

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for treesbeforebees who won a fic from me in the raffle! <3  
I hope you like it! Sorry it took so long for me to write!!  
big huge thank you to callie for being the best beta <3

Dan shuffled the papers in his in his arms as he fought to unlock his classroom door. He felt self conscious and itchy in a way that he knew was just in his mind as he stood in the pastel jumper and too white jeans. 

It was a far cry from his usual dark and bleak demeanor but when he joked about doing this social experiment on his students the idea took ahold of him until he was practically forced to do it.

He settled at his desk and jotted out his lesson for the day, cursing himself quietly for his procrastinating tendencies.

“What are you  _ wearing _ ?”

He glanced over to the door to see Phil, Mr. Lester from across the hall, giggling and staring at him like he grew a second head. 

Dan smirked.

“You like it? I’m seeing if the students treat me differently based on my outfit. Any predictions?”

Dan heard his voice call out confident and clearly, but inside he was full of nerves and paranoid of looking like a fool in front of his coworker. Especially since he had been pining over for Phil as long as they had been across the hall from each other. They started at the school the same year as each other and gravitated towards each other since. There was a lot of unspoken tension around the two of them when they were alone but it seemed neither of them were prepared to take one for the team and dive into the clear interest they both had for the other.

Phil laughed and shook his head. “Not really. I’m not sure if they’d notice something like that… Maybe just a lot of teasing?” He smiled at Dan and shook his head gently again before ducking back into the hallway.

Dan let out a long breath and slid into his chair. He frowned down at the pastel colored shirt that was seeming uglier and uglier the longer he thought about it. He missed being drenched in black and washed out in the darkness. He felt more secure and comfortable and far more prepared to be face to face with Phil. 

The bell rang and kids started slowly trickling in, none of them too enthused to start the day off with psychology. Dan couldn’t blame them. 

Dan wrote his lesson on the board and did roll call and started the class.  "He was surprised none of the loud kids that liked to give him a hard time – some in fun jext and some in nasty, uncomfortable ways that were too reminiscent of when he was student – said nothing"

It was Nancy Froymen, a smart girl who mainly kept to herself, that piped up towards the end of class. 

“Mr. Howell I like the color of your jumper.” 

“Thank you Nancy,” Dan said with a smile.

The students he was expecting to make a huge deal of it started muttering to each other.

“You look so…”

Dan winced and waited, hoping his face wouldn’t show his expression well if it hit too close to his history.

“...bright?”

Tension melted out of Dan’s shoulders and a different kid, a loud kid who loved Dan’s classes even if he was goofing off the entire time laughed and nodded. “Yeah Mr. H you look like you’re ready to take your kid Easter egg hunting, what’s going on? Where’s the dark cloud of eyerolls we’re used to?” 

Dan just smiled and shrugged, effortlessly fueling the fire with the rest of the class.

Class ended and they piled out of the door, half of them shooting questioning looks over their shoulders back at Dan. 

“You’re up to something!” one of them yelled. Their laugh were drowned out by the sound of slamming lockers as they disappeared into the hallway.

Dan took a deep breath and released it. Even though he loved the back and forth with his students more than most things, he was surprised to find how much he missed his dark clothes that made him feel bolder and less exposed. 

He pulled the sleeves down over his hands and ran his thumbs against the seam. The shirt was at least two sizes too big, thanks to his chronic procrastination, late night shopping, and absolutely not enough fucks given to look harder than the first pastel colored clothing he found. 

He felt cozy in the jumper he was practically swimming in. It was soft against his skin and though he maybe wouldn’t admit it out loud, did make him feel delicate in a way that woke up a part of him that he didn’t know had been craving it the whole time. 

The next few classes flew by, all of them already knowing what he was wearing and commenting on it before they were even sat down, thanks to the first class and the way word spread in schools. 

It was finally lunch time and he smiled at the students that poked their heads in with their lunches gripped tight and relief clear on their faces. 

Dan did what he could to make the school a better place, a safer place. His classroom was almost as full during lunch as it would be when class was in session, as he kept it open and invited any and all kids that needed somewhere safe and secluded to eat their lunch in peace. 

After fighting with the school board relentlessly for years, he finally had the okay this year to start a LGBTQ+ club that he chaperoned every Wednesday. He’d even managed to include a brief paper on same sex safety and education in all of the heath classes after he rallied for it alongside several other teachers, including Mr. Lester. He knew basically none of the teachers went over it and it was most likely forgotten on purpose at times. He knew they got calls every year by furious parents having meltdowns over their poor hellion’s ruined psyche, but Dan was damn proud of the little things they did to make this school leagues better and safer than any he ever attended. 

Days and weeks flew past and Dan found his closet filled with soft colored jumpers he wore to school, and a few that were extra soft to the touch made their way into his day to day life at home or simply running errands. 

He resisted the urge to lock them away after his mum droned on and on about how peakish he always looked in black and how nice these new clothes were after mindlessly wearing a pale pink shirt to dinner with her one night. 

“Mr. H are you going to tell us why you’re wearing yellow? Did you hit your head?” a bubbly girl named Martha giggled one day after school. She was nearly always silent during class but spent every lunch period laughing with her girlfriend in the corner of his room, and would occasionally stay in his room when school was over on days that Dan stayed behind to grade papers.

Dan shrugged dramatically, “Who knows, Martha?” 

She laughed and shook her head at him. “You’re onto something. Is it working?” 

He mimed zipping his mouth closed. She laughed at him and returned to her girlfriend in the corner. Dan turned to respond the same way to another student that was playfully heckling him when he caught his eye on someone standing in the hallway nervously.

Phil stood with his hands shoved into the pockets of tight black skinny jeans. He was wearing leather black shoes with spikes on the top. His shirt was gray and mostly covered by a black leather jacket and his hair that was normally reminiscent of old emo days pushed back in a quiff and the black dye it was colored with looked almost blue?

His face though, was bright red. 

Dan stumbled to his feet.

“Alright, I am beat so I am going to leave this classroom and not think about it until Monday morning. Sorry, you guys can hang around after school then because I’m sure I’ll have to play catch up.” 

The kids groaned and slowly gathered their things, making sure to put a show of it on and slowly trickled out of the room.

Dan gathered his own things, papers to grade decidedly left on the desk for a later Dan, and turned the lights off and locked the door behind him.

He heard the last phantom laugh of a student he had just urged out of his classroom before the heavy school doors closed.The school was silent in the kind of inappropriate, eerie way a place usually filled with people was when empty. 

“Phil?” The lights were off in his classroom. He frowned and turned to go.

“I like you. Like proper. Like… like you.” a voice from behind him blurted out, causing him to jump and drop his keys and dirty coffee mug he’d been meaning to take home.

“Phil. You just scared the hell out of me! You little–  _ what _ ?” Dan’s brain finally caught up with his ears. 

Phil laughed nervously and shrugged. 

“I just… felt safer telling you hiding behind this ugly jacket. I put all of this on as a joke, to mess with you and your springy pastel colors but I don’t know,” he rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “I felt cooler. Less like you’d say no. Only now I’ve rambled on about feeling cool in a leather jacket that I also think is ugly after I scared you alone in an empty hallway and I just–”

“ _ Phil _ ! Phil I like you too.” Dan sputtered a laugh and placed a hand on Phil’s arm. He ran his thumb along the cool leather and beamed up at him. 

He glanced over to meet intense eye contact from Phil’s burning blue eyes. 

“Even though I told you like a fourteen year old kid?” Phil arched an eyebrow.

Dan laughed at that and clutched onto Phil’s arm to keep him upright. “Well given the setting... I think it’s only fair.” 

“I should have written a note and had you check a box yes or no.” Phil groaned. He picked Dan’s coffee mug and keys off the ground and linked his arm through Dan’s. The leather squeaked and just reminded Dan how absurd this all was.

“I’m wearing black tomorrow this has all gone so much further than I thought.” 

“Did you get the results you wanted to? From the kids?” Phil asked.

Dan hummed and thought on it. “Actually I think I saw myself differently more than they did. They were all just waiting for the other shoe to drop and were convinced I was plotting something.”

“Nope that was me,” Phil joked. “Pretty worth it, eh?” He bumped his shoulder into Dan’s. 

“Yeah.” Dan smiled up at him with a fluttering in his stomach that made him  _ feel _ like a fourteen year old. “Pretty worth it.” 

**Author's Note:**

> This was definitely something new for me so let me know what you think in the comments!  
[ You can reblog it on tumblr here <3 ](https://tortitabby.tumblr.com/post/187039604280/colors)


End file.
